From Swarthmore College

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Mar

20

2010 Hottest Year Yet, 70 ft. Sea Rise Virtually Assured

The findings have just been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, which means that they have been subjected to searching scrutiny by other climate specialists. The UK Meteorological Office’s Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (Cru) at the University of East Anglia was able to recalculate climate change data so as to incorporate large numbers of observations from the arctic, which had earlier been sparsely recorded.

Since 1900, the average surface temperature of the earth has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, about .75 degrees C., because of the enormous amount of carbon dioxide and soot that industrial society is spewing into the atmosphere. Because of increasing carbon emissions, the earth is likely headed toward a 3-5 degree C. increase (5-7 degrees F.), which will over centuries melt all the surface ice, produce tropical conditions over the entire planet, and cause a sea level rise of dozens of meters/ yards. In the worst case scenario, a third of all land will be submerged.

New research on the Pliocine era has shown that even a 2 degree C. increase will likely cause a sea level rise of as much as 60-70 feet (20-23 meters). That would affect 70% of the earth’s inhabitants, hundreds of years down the road. Typically in past geologic eras, a 1 degree increase in average surface temperature produces a sea level rise of 10-20 meters (roughly 30-60 feet). But note that in the Pliocene, a couple of million years ago, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was only what it is presently (about 390 parts per million), whereas we are moving rapidly toward much higher levels before emissions level off.

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